Heated Rivalry Star Harrison Browne on Trans Athletes: “Sports Have Never Been Fair”
The actor and former hockey player said that focusing “solely on one hormone” ignores “real barriers to fairness.”
Vivien Killilea/Getty Images for IMDb Heated Rivalry actor and hockey history-maker Harrison Browne has something to say about the ongoing debate about transgender athletes playing in sports with cisgender athletes. In an interview with CNN , Browne, who made history as the first out trans professional hockey player, said that too much of the conversation around trans athletes has revolved around the idea that hormones, specifically testosterone, should be singled out as the exclusive source of competetive advantage. “When we focus so solely on one hormone, we’re overlooking the real barriers to fairness in sport,” he said.
He went on to elaborate that many other factors can actually affect athlete performance, including training, access to coaching, nutrition and socioeconomic status, all of which he believes affect athletic performance more consistently than any hormone. “Sports have never been fair,” Browne said. “If they were, everyone would be the same height and have the same access to resources, but that’s just not reality.
” Browne added that the focus on hormones is both reductive and misleading, per CNN . The focus on physiology “dehumanizes people,” he said, adding, “You’re just talking about their bodies — not their lives. ” Browne spoke to CNN to mark the forthcoming paperback release of his book , Let Us Play: Winning the Battle for Gender Diverse Athletes , due May 26.
In its reporting, CNN did acknowledge that the science backs up Browne’s assertions and that the relationship between hormones and athletic performance is not nearly as simple as “testosterone = good. ” “The single biggest misconception is that testosterone is some kind of permanent performance-enhancing drug, and once you’ve been exposed to it, the advantages are locked in forever,” Ada Cheung, an endocrinologist, told the news channel. Margaret Cho Turned Down *Heated Rivalry* Over Fears of ICE The bisexual comic was concerned her criticism of the Trump administration would make her a target for detention at the Canada border.